Hello and welcome to the latest elemental economics from the Business Daily team.

I am Justin Rowlett.

And today we've got one of the most dangerous elements in the entire periodic table in our sites.

It first captured the world's attention as a fashionable fluorescent glaze

for Victorian glassware.

But it would hold the world in raw

for very different reasons

during the second half of the 20th century.

It is the key ingredient

in atomic bombs and nuclear power stations.

But this element has also split the green movement,

as I discovered in one of the most explosive discussions of my entire career.

It is, of course, uranium.

Now, we've come to University College London to see Professor Andrea Sala as always,

but this time he's invited us into his office.

I just think we should take a moment, Andrea, to have a little look around

because there's bookshelves full of books.

There are piles of bottles with strange compounds and materials and chemicals in them.

There are boxes overflowing with weird stuff.

Wonderful old display jars of old chemicals.

Murate of potash, all sorts of peculiar things.

And then needless to say, all sorts of bits of bikes.

...